Captain Douglas swerved Raptor One to the side as Erik once again came into radio range. They were both flying over the Jungle and performing scouting runs for the Reclamation War. Taking pictures of the terrain with high-resolution cameras and dropping beacons that would map out the terrain. It wasn’t glorious work, there was little heroic in it and no action, but it was needed work. Better to waste some time on finding them rather than to waste lives or vehicles which would be swallowed up. “How are you doing?” Erik asked over the speaker.
“Same old, same old.” Douglas replied. “Returning, out of pods. You?”
“Same.” Erik turned Raptor Two and flew close next to Raptor One, the two black jets soared over the vast green ocean below them. “I want a shower.” Douglas agreed with Erik’s sentiment. He had flown in the newer KAF planes a few times now, largely to just show the new recruits how to handle them. The two Raptors simply did not compare to KAF jets. They were faster true, and more manoeuvrable, but they had been designed to counter the Goddess of Luck apparently.
That meant that the only electronics in the plane were the radios and the lights. The radars had been installed after the fact, and it showed. The cabins were crammed full, every inch of metal that could have had something installed, did, and it was obvious that the design had accounted for none of it. The cabin did have a heater, that too had been installed post-Operation Misfortune, and it had only two settings: Sub-Zero or Oven. “Shower would be good.” Douglas said. He drank some of the stale water as a yellow button by his right thigh lit up. Message incoming from income. Douglas flicked the switch to accept the call. “This is Captain Douglas speaking, over.” Ground Control was usually a pain in the ass when it came to maintaining proper radio discipline.
“Ground Control Speaking, can both Raptor units hear me, over?”
“Raptor One, you are loud and clear, over.”
“Raptor two, same here, over.” Erik added.
“You have a new mission. Radar picked up movement some two hundred kilometres to your south west. Coordinates should already be transmitted to you. Scout it out, over.” Douglas sighed, frankly this was the last thing he wanted to be doing right now.
“Excuse me? Ground control? Right now? You want us to scout it out?” Erik said over the comms.
“We do.” The radio replied. “Scout it out.”
“Now?”
There was a sigh from the other side of the radio. “It’s urgent Raptor Two. We wouldn’t be telling you to go on a scouting run with no ammo if it wasn’t.” Douglas sighed as he moved the control-stick to the right, his black jet started to turn with him.
Kavaa looked down the hole as Anassa blinked away from it. One moment, the Goddess of Sorcery was standing there, silhouetted against her red arts as they simply removed dirt from existence, the next, Anassa was besides them in that horrid dress of red velvet and silk, grabbing yet another orange from Iniri’s tree. “This.” Anassa declared loudly. “Is not work for me.” Fer made a he-he-he of a chuckle as she looked down the cliff.
Anassa’s sorceries had not dug, nor carved out a section of the soil. They removed a part of the world. They left a smooth surface and a perfect circle on the ground, large enough to drop an entire house in. Every now and then, a gust of wind would blow some dust into the hole but its edge was a sharp and sudden as the edge of a piece of paper. Fer was sitting on it, kicking her legs and looking inside. “You’re the best at this, so it’s your job.” Kassandora said as she stood there, in her suit, brilliant red hair cascading down her back. “In fact, you’re so good that it would be offensive if we tried to do it, it’s like letting a child cook whilst a master chef is standing by.”
Kavaa didn’t know if Kassandora meant it or not. The woman said the words without a hint of hesitation or shame, as if she was doing nothing but simply acknowledging Anassa’s power. True, the woman was strong, true, there was no one who could make this tunnel as quickly or as efficiently as Anassa could, but wasn’t that simply too much? Kavaa herself would honestly take it as an insult if Kassandora suddenly started talking about her like that. “Well…” Anassa said smugly. Kavaa sighed, Anassa apparently took it entirely in the opposite way that Kavaa would have taken it. Her cheeks went red with satisfaction and she looked at the orange from Iniri’s tree. “I guess I have to do it now.”
“If you don’t save us Ana, then who will?” Kassandora said flatly as she turned looked into the hole. “How far have you gone?” Kavaa peered over the edge herself. As did Iniri, that Goddess made a tiny little branch clamber out of the ground to hold onto as she looked. There was red soil, and then the red soil simply gave way to an ocean of darkness.
“Deep I guess.” Anassa replied.
“You can’t tell?” Kassandora asked.
“It’s a distance.”
Kassandora shook her head at the stupidity of the answer. “Yes but is it a long or a short distance?”
“Depends on who is measuring.” Anassa replied sharply this time and Kassandora sighed in exasperation.
“Then if you’re measuring Ana, how far is the distance?”
And Anassa smiled as she threw in the last slice of orange into her mouth. “All distances are short to me.” She said, mouth full and swallowed. “That was tasty.” She declared and then clapped her hands. “Right! Breaktime over! Time to get to work, someone has to do it after all!” And Anassa disappeared. She had been stood right there one instance, then in the next, she was gone. Kavaa looked down into the hole, she saw another red sphere of sorcery suddenly appear. There was no charge up, there was no wind, no great incantation or scream to let the world know it was about to behold the power of the Goddess of Sorcery. No, it just appeared and started moving downwards, erasing itself and the ground as it went. The only way trace of movement from it was Anassa’s silhouette from above, idling about as she called on more spheres.
Fer kicked her legs, swung from side to side and sniffed the air. Once. Twice. Thrice, then she leaned back and tilted her head back so that she looked at the rest of team upside down. “She’s dug three-hundred fifty metres about.”
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“Not deep then.” Kassandora said.
“It’s faster than if I did it though.” Iniri said quietly.
“How can you tell?” Kavaa asked and Fer smiled. The ears on top of her head straightened and her fangs revealed themselves.
“She’s hit a different kind of stone.” Fer said as she pulled out a crumpled piece of paper from her pocket and threw it at Kavaa. The Goddess of Health caught it and carefully straightened it out. It was just an image that had been printed off, an illustration of different ground layers. Kassandora gave it a glance and stepped away, Iniri stood on her tip toes and then looked at Fer with awe, brown eyes wide and mouth open.
“You can smell stone?” She asked.
“It has a smell.” Fer said happily. “Everyone can smell soil, it’s the same. The trick is telling them apart.” The sense of smell did not impress Kavaa in the least, she had gotten used to it when she had entered the highway with Fer and Iliyal. No, what was impressive was the woman’s foresight to predict and prepare for this scenario. She really did hide a beastly intelligence underneath that pretty smile.
“I have one thing to ask.” Kavaa said, Fer’s vulpine eyes turned to her, but it was Kassandora who spoke.
“Better to get the questions out now than later. What is it?”
“We’re going into the Jungle’s roots, right?” Kavaa said.
“We are.” Kassandora confirmed coolly.
“And what stops Iniri from falling to them again?” Kavaa asked. She turned to see Kassandora pointing at Fer. “What is Fer supposed to do exactly?” Kavaa said and Fer made that horrendous he-he-he of a laugh again.
“You saw me fight the Nationals.” Fer said. “Do you think Iniri will get taken when I’m here?”
“I don’t like it.” Kavaa said.
“It’s alright.” Iniri said. “I don’t…” She took a sigh. “Well, I don’t think I can stand against it, but I know what it’s like now. I can give a warning or something.”
“Anassa’s here anyway.” Kassandora said. “If Fer can’t do it, which I doubt, but if Fer can’t do it, then Anassa can. We’re not going on another trip into the Jungle again.”
“And if we are.” Fer said. “Then treat it as a team-building exercise.” Kavaa supposed there was nothing to say to these women. They were ultimately better at this than she was herself. With Fortia and Maisara and Allasaria, Kavaa had always felt as if her opinions were simply swept away and ignored. Neither Kassandora nor Fer swept her points away, but with them here, it was hard to think of anything she could add.
“And Anassa?” Kavaa said. “What if she gets taken.”
Kassandora looked to Fer and the Goddess of Beasthood shook her head. “She won’t.”
“She won’t?” Was all Kavaa had to say. She didn’t even make her tone farcical or disbelieving or questioning. It was just… She believed Fer, but she had no reason to believe Fer. That was the issue.
“I know she won’t.” Fer said, somewhat more disbelieving. “Just like I knew you or Little Kassie wouldn’t, or that Nene would.”
“Don’t call me that.” Kassandora said quickly.
“I would never Kassie.” Fer said. Kavaa saw Iniri smile to herself as they watched the two stare at each other. Fer’s eyes casting a horribly smug challenge, Kassandora’s resigned in their annoyance. Fer suddenly burst out in laughter, Kassandora smiled along. And now it was Kavaa who was annoyed. Annoyed that these two got on so well and she had just spent the past millennium seething in the White Pantheon.
“How long are we going in for?” Iniri asked.
“As long as we need to.” Kassandora replied. “Nanbasa should be able to hold and there isn’t anything pressing. I’m going to cut it off if we spend a month in there and can’t find anything.”
“And if we find…” Kavaa trailed off. “Tartarus?”
“Then we kill and retreat and Iniri fills up the hole.”
Iniri shook her head at that. “That’s so simple.” She said.
“Must it be complicated?” Kassandora asked back and Iniri shook her head even harder.
“No, I’m not complaining.” She spoke gently. “I’m just… It’s just refreshing I think.”
“You think too much.” Fer said from next to them, still looking at them with her head tilted back. Iniri turned to her, but she didn’t seem angry or even confused. More as if she had given up.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re not the Iniri I knew.” Fer said and sniffed the air. “You smell the same, but this isn’t the Mother Nature I fought against back then.”
“A lot can change in a thousand years.” Iniri said.
Now Fer shook her decisively, her golden locks brushing against the dark red Kirinyaan soil as she did. “Not us Iniri.”
“The world has moved on Fer.” Iniri argued back, some fire in her. Kavaa was impressed, no one had managed to drag any sort of rage out of Iniri for a while now. “It’s only natural that I’ve been left behind.”
The Goddess of Beasthood only stared the Goddess of Nature down, Kavaa didn’t know if Fer was angry or not, but she obviously was not happy with Iniri’s answer. “If the world’s moved on, then why am I here?” Fer asked. “No Iniri, once, my tigers had sabres for teeth. Now I run with wolves. Your great forests are gone, but you are still just as present, maybe even more. In the vines and the mosses and the roots that tear up roads. You’re still here.”
Iniri chuckled dryly. “Fer, I appreciate the support.” Kavaa blinked and took a step back. This was Iniri, but this wasn’t the tone she always used. Not the meek whisper that faded into the background, but the loud speech that Iniri always gave back then. “But I do not need it. We’re not children, let’s not pretend that going from sabretooths to wolves or oaks to vines is anything but a degeneration.”
Fer smiled slyly as she looked at Kavaa. Her eyes glinting with a victorious pride that she had drawn something out of Iniri. “If we’re talking about degeneration, we have the grandest degenerate right here.” Fer said, her tail moved to support her back and she pointed to Kassandora.
“Explain in what way I have gotten worse, please sister.” Kassandora said, not impressed at all.
“Let’s not pretend that war is grander now than it was in the Age of Heroes. Where’s the chivalry and gallant knights? The princesses to rescue? The kings to award titles?” Kassandora sniffed the air.
“I’ve distilled my subject down to the bare essentials. War is not chivalry or knights or kings. Compare the Age of Heroes to the Great War. Do you think the ancient fools would have lasted even a day? Compare them to today, with mass mobilization. What is grander than that?”
Fer nodded. “I have the same view. The sabretooth killed a man once a month, if that. The mosquito sentences an village in a night. The great serpents still live because they accepted they would be hunted to extinction if they kept the oceans to themselves. The wolf became the dog and ensured permanence for itself.” And Fer looked to Kavaa. “You have it easy.”
“Do I now?” Kavaa said.
“Was your demesne not grander back then?” Fer asked.
“With village healers and travelling doctors and healing magic?” Kavaa asked sarcastically. “Romantic, yes, but grander?” Kavaa shook her head. “The greatest thing the hospital has done is freed me from the annual pilgrimages to counter the winter flu.”
Fer turned to Iniri. “And there’s your answer. We’ve all grown less romantic, more jaded, but that’s how the world is. Back then, you had your grand forests, now, you have mold in the walls. Less romantic? Definitely, but don’t tell me it’s less efficient in combat.”
Iniri merely shrugged. “The entire world isn’t about fighting Fer. Am I deadlier? Most likely.” Iniri showed off her fingers and a root exploded out of the ground. “But do I want to be?”
“Just because your deadly doesn’t mean you’re a killer.” Fer said. “And if you weren’t deadly, you’d be harmless. Who will respect a harmless Goddess?” Kavaa nodded along, maybe she was simply as jaded as Fer was. Maybe they had simply lived too long. Whatever it was, she found herself agreeing.
She was about to speak, but Anassa suddenly appeared, she was still as perfect as ever, so clean she may as well have just stepped out of shower, her hair still gleaming. She looked around for Iniri’s orange tree. Saw it. Snapped her fingers. An orange shot out of the tree and landed in Anassa’s grasp. The Goddess of Sorcery looked down on them all from above. “Breaktime?” Fer asked.
Anassa tore the orange apart and dropped the skin into that abyssal pit she had just carved out. “Whilst all of you were busy rationalizing your existential dreads up here, I’ve been working.”
“And?” Kassandora asked.
“And we’re through.” Anassa said as she threw a piece of fruit into her mouth. “I’ve just hit carved stone. Fer was correct, it’s dwarves.”